Paint it Black
by Christiansoldier5
Summary: What are the secrets of the Black and White Hedgehog? What is about to invade their world? What was the purpose of the Masterplan? Please leave reviews of all kinds and don't forget to have fun reading.
1. Prologue

Prologue

The Dimly lit cell-block was slowly and noisily creaked open, pouring masses of light in to reveal dust and age.

A figure was soon thrown into the disused block: An Old Man. Still in his laboratory garb, this man has to answer for his mistakes. He tried his best to ignore the stuffy atmosphere as he sat on a creaky wooden stool as a single light came on, shrouding him in it's blinding glory.

"you know who you are correct?" a dark ominous voice emerged from the darkness, it's trembling low pitches striking fear into hearts of the weakwilled.

The Scientist laughed weakly "Finally caught up to me eh?" as he leaned forward resting his chin on his hands.

"Answer the question! Do you remember who you are?" the voice was getting espescially angry now.

"Of Course" replied the scientist, he knew that they knew that he didn't like being bossed around. "Doctor Samuel Burnett, professor of Biology, Nanotechonology and all those other bloody Ology's i can't remember, useless information in my line of work really" the sarcasm in his voice returned.

"Good, didn't want our boys to rough you up" the voice calmed down.

"Boys? Plural? I only remember two of you. One other including yourself... Edward."

Suddenly a small hatch on the metal door opened and a mauze folder was pushed through, before the hatch suddenly closed again. Samuel limped over toward the folder, picking it up and analyzing the Mobian face on the front cover.

"Do you know this Mobian?" "Edward" asked, it seemed demanding

"Ah yes, my greatest creation" The picture showed a young adult hedgehog smiling with many friends: foxes, echidnas, other so forth.

"Edward" spoke again "He's told us all he knows but it isn't enough. Our Universe is about to be invaded by something we can't find anything out about. Do you understand his full potential?"

Samuel's cheeky grin suddenly faded, replaced by a grim frown.

"Oh god do i. This reminds of that time when we visited..."

"shut up and start talking!" "Edward" shouted. There was no time for monologuing.

"very well" Samual sat up on his stool and faced the direction where "Edward's" voice came from

"I guess i'll start at the very beginning, at this very facility where it all began..." and the quote unquote camera zooms out to reveal the location as a medium sized complex on top of a snowy mountain...


	2. From humble beginnings

Chapter 1

**"... and so you've confirmed it" "Edward" said to Samuel, who looked exhausted from recounting past events.**

**"Yes, i had to do it since they wouldn't allow any of my experiments" he even sounded exhausted.**

**"yes, but what does this have anything to do with how powerful he is!" a second, deeper voice boomed into the holding cell.**

**"I'm getting to that Gregory" Samuel sat up straight again, folder in his sweaty hands. God, they needed to get fluerescant light bulbs in this place.**

**Samuel slowly took out a newspaper article from the folder and began to recite.**

**SCIENTIST STOPS SIGHTINGS OF SEPLERS.**

**Renowned biologist Samuel Burnett was recently awarded by Queen Sally Alicia Acorn for, along with his brilliant team, discovering the cure and developing a vaccine for Sepler-Hurst infection. The infection, most prominent in the rainforest reigons of Mobius, is known to turn it's victims a faint shade of violet, before they come down with a terrible fever and start developing leisons on their hands and feet. Primitive methods of cure included chewing the leaves of the common strawberry plant, complete dehydration in a sub-zero environment for up to three days, and in a method allegedly used by ancient echidna's: rendering them unconcious and then submerging them head-first in swamp water. Naturally whoever came up with that idea had the living daylights knocked out of him.**

**These methods proved to be good but not great, as while many died, many found their arms and/or legs rendered useless from the infection and in need of amputation, with the very few who could still use them were still violet in colour. But Doctor Burnett was reported five years ago as to suspecting a cure to come from the Aralaclese fungus, it's only location in the deep forests of Mercia, where it has come close to excinction multiple times due to an unpredicatble confrontations between the native Red Squirrel and Grey Squirrel populations...**

**The rest of the article was torn off, but "Edward" already knew what happened.**

**"so you were awarded by Miss Acorn, why does that even matter?"**

**"Well if i told you then it wouldn't be a suprise." Samuel chuckled.**

**"Stop joking about, old man! Where is the connection!"**

**"Quiet my dear lad, for our convenience i'll skip forward a bit. You already know what he did when he was 3 years old"**

**"Yes, sending a top research scientist and an entire hallway off the side of the mountain, we don't need telling this shit twice, we've done our damn research!"**

**"my my. Language Gregory, whatever did your grandpa tell you?" Samuel was acting devious again; "Edward" had to change the subject.**

**"what happened after when he was three? What about his thirteenth birthday?"**

**"good lord, now this is where the story begins!" Samuel was excited, he sat up in his chair and began to speak.**

_**Five Years Ago**_

_**"Richard's alarm clock usually goes off at around, erhm... 6:30 am? So i waited patiently outside the door..."**_

Samuel, looking slightly younger, peeked inside the dark room to see the standing figure getting dressed. One might think it strange for a grown human man to admire the sight of a mobian teenager getting dressed early in the morning "fatherly instincts i suppose" he thought to himself.

The figure, a hedgehog named Richard soon left the room, into the cold hallways of the expansive laboratory. With Black fur, whie stripes, his vibrant red eyes and those wings...

_**"...And that physical description was so important, why?" asked Gregory.**_

_**"because i wanted to entertain the audience." sighed Samuel, lying back on his stool.**_

_**"Audience?" asked Edward.**_

_**"Yes... i know that you're recording this conversation, and you wanted everybody to find out everything you could about the boy"**_

_**Samuel heard whispers, shuffling seats, until another voice rang out.**_

_**"apparantly he couldn't talk..." said "Gregory"**_

_**"Yes unfortunatly, a side effect of the Nanobots, it was a programming error you see..."**_

_**"I know all that, how you needed a dummy to test your theory about this new super element Beryllium Carbonate, how the United Federation government wouldn't invest in such a risky business venture, and neither would The United Spagonian Kingdoms, The Arab Confederacy, or even tiny little Adabat. About how one scientist despised your research and soon afterwards suddenly dissapeared without a GODDAMN TRACE..."**_

_**"BLASPHEMY... boy." Samuel smirked, this would be over in no time at all.**_

_**After events has calmed down, he started recounting again...**_

"Morning Richard. Sleep well?" Samuel asked.

Richard smiled and nodded.

"When everyone else has woken up, i want you to go to the mess room, theres something i need you to look at." he patted him on his back and left down the corridor.

Richard frowned. He couldn't have forgotten his own birthday could he? But he was his father but he was also a very busy man.

Richard waited an hour before everyone else woke up, and then waited for the breakfast bell to start. Soon breakfast bell sounded and Richard made his way across the deserted hallways fo the Facility, where has everyone gone?

Richard looked out the window, there was a very violent snowstorm outside, wishing and whirring with the flakes around a centimeter squared.

Richard reached the mess room, a cramped room for how large the facility was: twelve feet by twelve feet. It could only really fit a refridgerator, a television, two tables and it was located near the very center of the facility. It was pitch black inside the curtains closed, lights off and quiet as a mouse. Richard flipped the lightswitch and a strange shimmering appeared in front of him.

"Suprise!" a crowd of peopel shouted. Richard was shocked, this was Professor Howdle's invisibility probe at work?

Dr. Fernandez came up to Richard. "Happy birthday kiddo" she said in her sultry spanish accent, planting a kiss on his cheek. He blushed slightly. Samuel sat down at the table along with the other researchers.

"13 years on this planet Mobius, you should consider yourself proud to be a teenager" and he was right. Richard was proud, he almost couldn't believe it.

"So who is initiating with the party games and such?" asked Professor Bahvar, a native of the Hindu part of Shamar that was exemplery in his skills with computing.

"So let's start with "Pin the Imp on the yellow background." said Samuel, gleefully.

And soon after Richard had whacked a Viva Pinata to shreds and Mr. Gilette had gotten a high score in Marxio Party 11, it was time to unwrap the presents. Not extravagent at such, this research facility was rather isolated after all, but Richard was glad and he enjoyed his gifts.

A DVD that Samuel said once made him cry tears of joy... Richard guessed anime was weird like that.

Marxio Party 12... wow... uh... thanks Dr. Bahvar, i'm sure this will be much better than the last one he thought.

Chrono the Clownfish and Swilly the Snail... a childrens book about a time-travelling fish, Dr. Fernandez? Old habits die hard, Richard thought.

Elder Bjorgen who acted as a liason to the Vatican next gave him... a metal CD: Bjorgenschmordfard or however it's said, it could have read Fjeldschinggrueljyelgen and the music would still be ear rape central.

And the final present was... well...

_**"Well, What?" asked "Edward"**_

_**"Well..." yawned Samuel. Recounting this boring sequence of events was getting tiring. "...here's how it went down"**_

_**A/N: I slightly edited this chapter for censorship purposes. Nothing major, just two instances of the F-word. It's this story that's going to be the innocent adventure title with a big story and Revenge Rising is going to be the heavyhearted curse word filled sex-packed violent story for those who can handle it. Did I mention you need to read both to get the full story?**_


	3. I know someone who can help

Richard was in his room lying on his bed listening to some music through some headphones. It was just ordinary rock tunes from the band Twisted Underground but he likes it a lot. Richard liked to imagine a story to the words and music of the song, mostly they were graphic depictions of historical events.

He had already started imagining one when someone knocked on his door. Richard didn't open it. The door was being knocked again. Richard still didn't hear it. Fianlly the door was opened slowly. Richard was suprised and turned off his music and took off his headphones. The door opened some more to reveal it was Samuel.

"Richard... if i could have a word?" he asked. Richard nodded in approval.

"... in my office?" he concluded as he exited the doorway. Richard hopped off the bed, put on some socks and followed him. What did he want with me? he asked himself.

They soon arrived at Samuel's office. It was fairly spacious and contained many shelves of books and paper scattered everywhere. Samuel ran his fingers across the wooden desk, charred from experiments and it had lost most of it's mahogeny charm.

Richard stood jittering in front of the desk. Samuel fetched him a rickety stool "please sit down, lad" Richard sat down as the stool creaked and cracked. Samuel also sat down in his worn leather office seat by his desk.

"Now Richard, i don't want you to feel upset or intimidated and i especially intend to give you a choice in what i have planned for you."

Richard was especially anxious. What was Samuel going to say? What was going to happen? Had I done something wrong?

Samuel inhaled deeply and began. "Do you know what happened when you were three years old?"

Richard immediatly started sweating. What was Samuel going to do? What did I do when I was three that earns me suspiscious glares? Why am I being watched constantly? Richard shook his head slowly

"Well, there was an accident. Involving you. CCTV recorded the moment" and Samuel got a DVD from one of his shelves, it only had an Omega symbol sharpie'd on it. Samuel inserted it into his desktop and Richard shuffled round to the PC to get a better look.

The image quality was slightly below average though the black-and-white soundless footage clearly showed a woman with long flowing hair running down a corridor, carring a small bundle of cloth in her arms."One of our top scientists, a little coo-coo coco puffs" Samuel pointed to the woman. Now, you could see someone giving chase, their hair dark and short.. Suddenly, right before the footage ended, you could see a blinding white flash engulf the screen.

Samuel coughed "And this image was taken shortly afterward by a Federation spy sattelite. Not entirely coincidental but it did help in the investigation somewhat" and Samuel procured a photo from his desk. It's pristine colour quality showed a section of the facility from the birds-eye perspective, with a part of the hallway blown away. Debris was scattered across the mountainside and a fire broken out from a broken gas reserve. You could see a small speck of auburn from in the gaping hole. Samuel pointed to this.

"That's me, a lot younger than i am now. I am holding you in my arms there." Then he referred back to the CCTV footage "that bundle of cloth she is holding... is you also." He started slowing down the footage to an almost light speed playing "notice how the light originated from you"... and it was true. It did.

Richard couldn't speak... well his lack of speech didn't help matters but this left him completely unable to speak. He knew what words meant, he just couldn't utter them. Richard jittered about, desperatly using an incomprehensible sign language. It didn't help that he was going rapidly and it was hard to understand. He looked on the verge of tears.

"Richard, you have to understand that this phenomenon wasn't your fault, you were only a child at the time." Samuel reached into his desk again and pulled out a few tissues. He offered them to Richard, who blew his nose and wiped his eyes.

"Look, you are worried about this happening again aren't you? You don't understand what this is, don't you?" Samuel asked. Richard kept using the tissues to catch oncoming tears as he nodded in reply.

"Well, I've been in touch with very helpful, very well renowned mobians. They know someone who can help you control your ability" and Samuel took out one final piece of information...

_**Samuel showed the two-way mirror a small novella-thick book: HISTORY OF THE HOUSE OF ACORN. 3187-Present Day.**_

_**Samuel opened up on a bookmarked page: showing Queen Sally and Sonic on an open grassy field on a bright sunny day. Sonic was twriling his crown around his fingers like a miniature hula-hoop whilst Sally was embracing him, posing for the camera in her royal gowns.**_

_**"So you showed him this?" asked "Edward"**_

_**"Why yes i did actually, terribly outdated even back then but i managed to contact them for help dealing with Richard."**_

_**"You going to the useless royal family for help? Give me a fu..."**_

_**Samuel glared at the mirror, "Gregory" shut his mouth.**_

_**"Uh... i mean... give me a break."**_

_**"Anyway, a friend of the family was teaching the prince in the ways since they were both very adept with the Chaos. Richard didn't like leavimg everybody he knew but he always want to get out of that freezing cold facility and see the world. So he agreed, eagerly he agreed. We did briefly stop in Soleanna for refuelling and there, Richard earned quite the history lesson..."**_


	4. A History Lesson

Richard got off of the stuffy G.U.N. Helicopter and stretched his legs as hard as he could, boy was that trip boring as hell. No inflight movies or even a scrap of food to eat.

The rotorblades of the helicopter slowly slowed down as Samuel lept out of the craft carrying two cases of luggage.

"We'll get us a cheap motel and stay the night. That's the plan." Samuel said as they walked to the airport terminal. They got their passports checked and soon recieved transport to their motel, in the form of a taxi driver. He was very talkative

"...then i says to 'im 'oy mate, Solenna City F.C.'s gone belly-up these past couple days, what with that dodgy manager an' all, so what makes you think that Adabat has any chance o' winnin the cup?' and then 'e says to me 'well the big bad blues to the east are right stuffed up the tail'ole with the strange robot attacks, so that takes away our main comptetitor, and then there's the whole holy war shenanigens in Shamar so that takes away those maltesers, and then..."

The taxi driver droned on and on as Samuel was listenting for what is was even worth, and Richard just looked out of the window: people hustled and bustled around the city streets. They were setting up for the next Soleanna festival of light and Emporer of Chun-nan was arriving for a state visit. Expectations were obviously high.

They soon arrived at their destination: a rather messed up, small and overall unpleasent looking stereotypical looking motel.

Richard was not amused. He looked up at Samuel with an aura of disappointment surrounding him.

"The best I could do on such short notice. Besides we're only staying here one night." Samuel replied as he hauled the luggage into their room.

The room was painfully average: TV, Couch, one bed, small cramped bathroom and no kitchen so they'd go to the fish and chip shop for dinner and breakfast tomorrow.

Samuel dropped the bags on an armchair before he himself flopped down onto the couch, exhausted and breathing heavily, his face all red.

"I'm not sure why i packed a lot of crap i didn't even need" he said through labored breathing and a small chuckle near the end. Shortly afterwards he dropped off to sleep still wearing his clothes.

Richard smirked. That old coot packing all of those gadgets, what is a Steambox?

Besides, he wasn't going to sit around in this dingy embarrasment of a holiday residence trying to beat his high-score on F-T-C-R, no, he wanted to see what this huge city had to offer.

Richard left a note "Exploring. Promise to be back by 7". he left it on the coffee table, took some change with him and set out.

_**Hub Area: Soleanna**_

**This is the hubworld you use to access stages. Here you can buy and equip abilities, talk to townspeople and accept sidequests or explore. Try walking toward the beach.**

The Sun was shining and the city was relatively busy, people rushing home from work and children coming home from school. Richard was simply amazed at this new experience, he felt warm in the sunlight, he relaxed to the sounss of the bustling crowd and the humming cars.

After walking down a few blocks, Richard's eye was caught by something: a memorial of sorts. The small, cylinder shaped white structure seemed to jut out of the landscape where it stood beside the seafront. Flowers were laid around and a few inside the building, there was a young woman kneeling to one of the sides praying and this building seemed to cause a cold air of fear around it compared to the warm sunny day.

Richard went up to it, there was a carving of a golden blur as well as a memorial tablet beside it.

It read: _On the 21__st__ of Maimakterion in the year of 1026 A.D., a strange golden creature came across the sea and proceeded to terrorise the city of Soleanna, destroying buildings and murdering many. 206 people died in the week long assault, including our beloved Princess Elise III. It was only by the brave efforts of the Freedom Fighters as well as an efficient and swift evactuation that the being disappeared without a trace and prevented more deaths. May god bless their eternal souls._

Richard moved his fingers across the plaque. He didn't know that such tragedy could occur in this world, he was completely blind while in that facility.

Stuck to the side of the memorial was a leaflet reading:

_**DESTROY THE TERRORIST!**_

_The Acorn Kingdom refuses to release the monsterous madman for trial in Soleanna. _

_Justice for the 206! _

_Rally infront of the Palace. _

_21__st__ Maimakterion 1046._

That date had long since passed.

Not having enough money to buy a bunch of flowers, Richard went down to the beach. The waves rolled out as they crashed in, people laughed and smiled as they swam and relaxed. Seagulls flocked and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky.

Richard took out a small piece of bronze Soleanna currency, the monarch depicted on one of the sides showed Daniel IV, the current king, the dates showed that the coin had been printed in 1048.

Richard took a deep breath and tossed the coin into the ocean, making a wish. It was now that he noticed how soft the sand felt sifting through his hands, neither solid nor liquid. Taking one last breath of the salty sea air, Richard got up and started walking again.

Richard was about to open the door to the motel room when, as he was right in front of it about to grip the handle, it shot open: Samuel had opened it, now wearing something more casual, just shorts and a hawaiian t-shirt. Could old people get any more embarrasing?

Samuel looked suprised. "Oh Richard, I was just going out to find you."

Richard went inside over to the coffee table and showed him his note. Samuel looked gobsmacked, as though he had been facepalmed by the Magic Gloves.

"Oh... I guess I must have missed that" he chuckled somewhat.

Later that night, after a quick dinner of fish and chips, Samuel was wrapped in a duvet sleeping on the couch, with an airing of some science fiction show playing on the small TV, really quietly. Richard lay in the small bed in the only bedroom staring at an internet video on Samuel's notebook.

It was titled: **Dark Demon Attack! 27/5/26**

_It was only around two minutes long and recorded poorly on a smartphone from the the top of a very far away building, but it showed truly horrifying content: a golden blur, unidentifiable due to it's blinding aura was flying across the blackened sunset with several seaside buildings on fire, military firing at it in futility as the beast simply evaporated them with lasers emanating from what seemed to be a head._

_Coming down the street, we see two more beings: one blue and another yellow. "Was this Sonic before or after he became king?" thought Richard. The blur dashed toward Sonic, but he quickly side-stepped to the left, nearly hitting the guard rail beside the road. No voice could be deciphered because the phone didn't record such sound, making up for the silence with a Twisted Underground song playing: Dying Breed._

_But Sonic instantly switched tactics after his friend stopped talking. The creature charged toward him as Sonic throttled towards it with his powerful if not overrated Sonic Boost. He hurled himself toward the thing... knocking it a few metres backward, losing it's colour. The video ended before we can see what colour the monster really was, with the phone suddenly turning around to reveal two mobian dog's dressed in police uniforms, authoritively speaking to the recorder. The phone started moving away, shaking violently before abruptly switching off._

Richard switched off the notebook, placing it down by the side of the bed. He was brimming with excitement for tomorrow. It was sad that they were leaving tomorrow but by the end of that day, they would arrive in the Acorn Kingdom, ready to pick up the person who would help him. He wrapped up in the sheets, closed his eyes and fell to sleep.


	5. Royal Family Values

**Hello, thought i'd put in an Author's note for once. just noting that i'm not recieving all that many reviews. don't worry if you're scared that i'll take any constructive criticism negatively, and i won't delete this story if it don't get's enough reviews like some of those other new writers that are whoring for attention. So i'm encouraging you to just read and review and please enjoy it because as far as i'm concerned, 25YL never happened. Penders, save the whole future scenario for fanfiction writers like me.**

**That and for anyone who's been reading this far hoping to see Sonic characters and not just locations, well prepare to be pleasently suprised.**

**"So you briefly stopped in the Acorn Kingdom..." said Edward**

**"Oh yes, outside New Mobotropolis as a matter of fact. We were only there to pick up the person who would be helping Richard." Samuel said with a paper cup of water by his side. He had taken off his lab-coat revealing a white vest.**

**"and that was Prince..." continued Edward**

**"Echo Alexander Hedgehog, I know, you know, you've said it twice already!" Samuel was exaspherated.**

**"...Echo Alexander Hedgehog." finished Edward**

**"...Thrice" sighed Samuel.**

Echo Hedgehog was busy combing his quills in front of a mirror. He looked like his father Sonic in rather a lot of ways. His quills and fur were blue, His arms were skin color, he wore a more bulky version of the power sneakers in that they were round instead of pointed and he was wearing an ordinary pair of jeans. His mothers features remained subtle indeed, limited to his brown eye color and a small tuft of brown fur on his chest.

Echo was too busy admiring himself as the door to his room was knocked.

"Come in" he said as he finished up, smoothing over his quills and obtaining a can of body spray.

The person who knocked and subsequently entered was one of the maids: a tortoise with violet markings on her shell.

"Apparantly they've arrived sir, and are waiting for you to greet them" she said, carefully saying her words.

"Thanks Tammy." said Echo as he brushed himself off and headed downstairs, this wouldn't sound so bad if the palace wasn't gigantic as it was.

But hey, Son of Sonic, need I say more?

He screeched to a halt inside the throne room, there waiting was Samuel, Richard and on the throne was his mother: Sally Alicia Acorn. She had grown old in the passing years, settling down with the love of her life, leading the Kingdom in-name-only to prosperity, defeating Eggman and modernising the state.

Samuel noticed him.

"Ah, Echo, good to see you at long last." Samuel walked toward him, Richard looking on curiously.

"Nice to meet you too, old timer" Samuel offered his hand, which Echo shook.

"I haven't seen you since you were this big" Samuel said, making his fingers illustrate something roughly the size of an orange. Echo was confused, he looked at Samuel expectedly.

"Oh, right... must have been the ultra sound." Richard simply rolled his eyes.

"So you're sure you've got everything you need?" Sally asked from her place on the throne. Echo walked up to her.

"Yes, Mom" Echo was getting tired of this routine.

As Sally and Echo crossed off everything that Echo needed to take, Samuel shared a few words with Richard.

"It's as much a learning experience for him as much as it is for you" he whispered. Richard looked at him in confusion.

Samuel responded. "Quite the irresponsible boy he is, can't keep track of time, can't do anything his parents tell him to do, basic nightmare."

Richard looked towards Echo again.

"...I got that too."

"Good"

"yeah..." something dawned on Echo. "oh... and Breeze?"

"She's studying the Mystic Ruins kid, of course she's coming with you" said another voice from the far left of the room: an aged yellow fox with something strange about him: two tails he was badly limping, and had someone helping him up.

"In fact, she's just gotten ready." his helper looked up. When she took herself off of the fox, Richard could see her clearly. He couldn't tell exactly what species she was but Richard could identify her features without talking about the obvious attraction points: light blue skin and she had brown hair and a white muzzle. She was wearing a pair of brown daisy dukes, a dark blue jacket with the sleeves rolled up and her boots were pink with a white stripe running down them. Her most interesting feature was without a doubt her chocolate-tinted wings that seemed to come slightly shorter than her arms.

"Dad!" she shouted, as Echo knelt down and returned her hug. "Hey Gal" Echo replied.

She was excited. "It's gonna be great at the Mystic Ruins, away from Grandpa." This seemed to irk Echo. "Hey, he's not that out of date."

Samuel smirked as Breeze asked "What are you doing anyway? I was never told". That's when Samuel spoke up.

"Learning some responsibilities, my dear. With Richard here." patting Richard on the back.

Breeze disconnected from Echo and started walking towards Richard and Samuel. She seemed particularly facsinated with Richard. And then she began the flurry of questions.

"Hi Richard, what's your favourite colour? what band do you like? Do you play video games? Do you ever use those wings of yours? Do you read comic books? Ever read that cool graphic novel _F for Freedom_? Hey, why aren't you talking?..."

It was then that Samuel interjected. "My dear, if you'd kindly let Richard breathe." but it was then that Richard ran off. Samuel muttered to himself as Breeze just stood there and said "Was it something I said?"

Outside the castle grounds, Richard sat down in front of a tall tree and inahled struggled to not cry. His inability to talk tended not to bother him if it wasn't so glaring, it was just a quirk that he had to live with, like an amputated leg or blindness. But Richard wanted so desperately to be able to speak words, not remaining a mute who couldn't even do sign language.

As tears exited Richards eyes and fell onto his legs, he felt someone come up beside him. It was Samuel.

"Hey kid." he said, as Richad buried his head into his arms again. Samuel sighed.

"look, it's just the kind of reaction you can expect from someone as young and bright eyed as her. I mean, look at you, exploring Soleanna all by yourself." he tried to sound comforting, but Richard still kept his head secluded.

"Look, if it makes you feel any better, i've explained what your... problem is. To her and Echo."

It was then that Richard looked up, drying his eyes.

**Earlier**

_"Yes, my dear, i think you did say something wrong" Samuel was speaking to Breeze as she looked up, puzzled._

_"Well, what's up with him?" she asked. Echo decided to move in closer, also wanting to find out._

_"Well, his problem is... he can't speak." Samuel, slowly said._

_"What, is he like... retarded or something?" asked Echo before being slapped by Samuel, hardly._

_"OW. What in Aurora was that for?" he shouted._

_"Richard is most certainly not mentally incapable, your highness." Samuel snapped._

_"Well... what IS wrong with him?" asked Breeze._

_"Well he... it's very complicated, but... He was born, yes? But he had inherited a very dangerous disease from his parents."_

_"What?" asked Breeze._

_"Oshima Respioritry Deficiancy Syndrome, or ORDS as it's called. It's gimmick so to speak is to weaken the tissue of the lungs to a frightening fragility. Richard was just another statistic to add to a quite high death ratio"_

_"He Died?" exclaimed Breeze_

_"Yes, but through a bunch of technobabble i'm sure none of you would understand, nanobots assisted in his revival, they repaired his lungs and kickstarted brain activity, but with a twist. The Nanobots suffered from a programming error. They repaired or replaced his organs but they also completely shredded his vocal chords. And there is no schematic on this Mobius for artificial chords. He will never talk. Ever."_

_Breeze was dumbfounded. She didn't mean to hurt his feelings like that. She walked over to her grandmother, and started sobbing silently._

_Samuel started heading outside. "I'll try and find him. Give you a chance to work out what to say."_

**Present.**

Samuel and Richard arrived back at the palace, where Breeze, Echo and the old two-tailed fox.

Samuel moved off toward the two tailed fox. "Ah, Miles, i forgot to say hello back there." Breeze shuffled toward Richard, head hung down.

She started slowly "...I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you."

Richard avoided eye contact, and he wasn't smiling, but he did hold out his hand.

Breeze was suspicious, but shook it anyway. "Thanks, i hope we can be great friends." Richard smiled slightly.

Tails and Samuel watched them, talking ot themselves.

"We know that that story is bullshit." murmered Miles, disgruntedly.

"I didn't exactly lie, Prower, i just omitted certain truths." Samuel defended himself.

"Like the Space Colony ARK."

"Yes, it's true that Richard as we know him today was created there, but i had to pull a lot of strings to get the required tech."

Miles chuckled lowly "Beryllium Carbonate was the required tech? Oh give me a break. I'll never know how you managed to convince them in handing it over."

"G.U.N. needed a reason to not destroy the ARK, I needed a place to conduct the procedure privately."

But then a young man burst through the castle doors.

"Sam, we are refuelled and ready to leave at any time."

Samuel stood up and looked at Richard, who nodded, and then to Echo, his hand resting on Breeze's shoulder, who also nodded.

Samuel looked at the man "We're ready."


	6. Settling In

_**Dream**_

_**Richard can see a fairly young woman carrying him in his arms, Richard must be really tiny or a baby or something. The woman had long flowing red hair and was wearing laboratory gear, she was being pursued by someone. These people were from the CCTV footage. Richard coudl feel that he was wound up in a blanket.**_

_**"Stop!" Shouted the man "I will have you reported in!"**_

_**"And then what? I'll be gone by then!" shouted the woman, her voice determinant. "I'm going to raise this creature right. You're just treating him like a science experiment!"**_

_**"Oh, like your science experiments aren't any more questionable. And it doesn't help considering your father..."**_

_**"I AM BETTER THAN HIM! This creature shall be the start of a new generation of androids."**_

_**Suddenly, Richard grew hot, he closed his eyes, and the next thing he knew...**_

The Dream ended.

Samuel shook him awake as the helicopter landed. The group hopped out of the craft and onto a plain. Samuel started moving toward a rather secluded hut nearby. This hut had an orange two-tail emblem above it's door.

Richard looked out to the large view, although one side was obstructed by mountains and a railroad line, the other side was a goregous view of the sea. The sun was shining and the large paved area looked like it served as an airplane runway. Richard looked down toward the land area and saw that they were on a small hill themselves. He also saw a beautiful lake with a few cave enterances dotting the sides of the mountains.

Samuel unlocked the door to the hut. It was basically four rooms: one bedroom, a living room, large hanger of sorts, and a multipurpose room that currently seemed to house a lot of junk.

The group went inside, Echo immedietly laid down on a dusty old couch, which was fortunate to not collapse under his weight from age. Samuel moved to drop of some supplies when he lightly smacked Echo on the face. "Get up, you lazy bastard." he grumbled as he dropped some plastic carrier bags on the coffee table. Breeze stayed outside and decided to go out for some flying, she was gone before anyone would notice. Richard just stood akwardly in the doorway as Echo begrugedly started unpacking. Samuel dropped Richard's luggage beside the couch as he started to leave.

"Well, i think i've set you all on the right track. Goodbye Richard. I'll see you some other time." he said as he quickly got back into the helicopter, briefly waving at Richard until the craft started taking off toward the sea,

Richard stared at the helicopter until it was little more than a speck of air on the horizon. He looked into the building, Echo had finally finished unpacking everything and slumped on the couch...

which broke under the sudden force.

"CHAOS FUC..GRRRRR" He groaned in annoyance.

Richard went over to him as Echo helped himself up. "I'm fine kid" he said. Richard smiled in approval.

Echo took a deep breath as he then proceeded to boot up the power while Richard trashed the wrecked couch. They then sorted through the junk, dusted the house, made the beds, made sure everything worked and when Breeze decided to come back, they all had a nice hot cup of tea.

Shortly afterwards, Breeze, on a few cushions to serve as a replacement couch watching an action film on an old TV, that came with a cheap freeview antenna. Richard was staring at the mesmerising pattern on a rather ordinary tablecloth as Echo yawned loudly.

"Well, i'm hitting the hay. Be ready for training tomorrow, soldier boy."

Richard broke his concentration and stared of at a clock, seeing that it was indeed, quite late.

"Sam told me to give you these while you were asleep." said Echo, handing him a small cardboard box. Echo immediatly shuffled off to the bedroom. Breeze promptly turned off the TV after her movie ended.

"Well, i might as well turn in. G'night, Free Mobian." She as she waltzed into the spare room, which had been turned into a multipurpose room. Richard followed her and entered to see two sleeping bags laid on the tiled floor.

As Richard moved towards the sleeping bag to his left, Breeze said "Can a lady be allowed to change please?"

Richard soon pulled the sleeping bag over his head, staring in darkness until Breeze announced "Ok, you can take that off your head now."

Richard removed the sleeping bag to see Breeze lying in hers, not showing anything really revealing. Richard readjusted himself as Breeze fell asleep listening to music on her headphones. Richard stared through a window catching glimpses of the bright moon.

As Breeze fell asleep to the roaring guitar of Twisted Underground, Richard decided to see what was in the cardboard box. Inside a sheet of bubblewrap were two golden rings. Richard noted that they were visually pleasing to look at from the moonlight. They came with a note: _Keep them on at all times, just to be safe. Sammy. _ On the reverse of the note was a small diagrom of an arm, outlines where Richard should put them... around his wrists.

Richard decided to try them on and he didn't feel any different. The bands fit his wrists perfectly and nothing noticeable was happening like his arms fell limp or they satrted getting colder... they were just there and they actually looked pretty cool.

Richard re-adjusted himself, facing breeze. He had a big day tomorrow.


	7. Ice Cap Zone

**"So what did Echo teach him?" asked Edward.**

**Samuel finished guzzling down a plastic cup of water. "How should i know? I never got to see him that often. I'm sure he didn't want me to butt in on his lessons, and I was busy with my work and..."**

**"Busy with your work, yeah whatever" Gregory retorted. "What about the machines at the Mystic Ruins."**

**"Ah, those broken machines, those worn-out, rusted, useless stupid hunks of scrap. Juliette always said they were weak but imagine how fast they'd go down when you encountered Richard...**

_Four Years Later, Ice Cap Zone_

In the month of Thargelion, Richard, now 17 years old was loctated on the ledge of the snowy mountain, sparring with Echo. He immediatly pounced as Richard sprung two shortsword-ish chaos bolts from his hands and blocked his charge, striking him and singing his fur.

"Hey, woah, don't make me a kentucky fried hedgehog!." Echo shouted as he examined the damage, a large black mark where the fur on his arm burnt. Richard could think it looked golden for a second.

Richard made the bolts dissapate into nothing and went over to Echo. "I'm fine kid" he said. "Well, that was cool. See ya back at the shack." Echo immediatly raced away as Breeze swooped down.

"Hey, have you seen where dad went?" Richard pointed towards his general direction.

"Damnit." Breeze examined her footprint in the snow. She suddenly remembered.

"Oh, Samuel told Echo to tell me to give this to you." and she handed Richard a small card, it had Richard's face and his name: Richard Samual Burnett on it, and a date of birth: 16/1/1034 which would have translated to the 16th of Elaphebolian in the year 1034 A.D.

"It's a worldwide I.D. Card; Universal on every country on Mobius. Take a look at mine." Breeze pulled hers out of her coat pocket, this card also had her face and date of birth: 29/5/34 which would have been the 29th of Gamelion 1034. But oddly, her name was listed not as Breeze Selina Hedgehog, but as **Veronica** Selina Hedgehog.

Richard pointed this out to her.

"Oh, it's just one of those insensitive laws that the Federation came up with: Mobians must have human names on official stuff like passports. I don't mind it personally. Hey, learned anything new recently?"

Richard suddenly perked up in enthusiam. He pointed towards an unassuming tree.

"Ok..." she said slowly. Then Richard started to concentrate, and soon one of the chaos bolts appeared in his hand. He threw it at the tree like some sort of throwing dagger, leaving a patch of snow melted and a scarred tree.

"Cool. Anything you've learned that isn't destructive?" but before she could look back at him, he disappeared. Breeze turned around quickly to see Richard standing there.

"Oh, is that one of those Chaos Controls?" Richard nodded

Suddenly a voice rang out. "Hey, Breeze!"

Richard leaned to the side to see two figures approaching Breeze from behind: A Red Echidna with bright violet eyes wearing a black baseball cap, light brown vest and shorts and his shoes were also an earthen shade of brown. He must have been freezing cold**.**

Alongside him was an orange fox, with dulled out green eyes, a rough and unkept mop of yellow hair on his head, he was wearing a dark orange coat that wasn't zipped up fully, so Richard could see he was also wearing a white shirt and light green knee-length pants. His boots were also of a mineral green.

"Oh, hey guys!" she smiled and started approaching to them. Richard waved to them feebly.

"They're part of my Mystic Ruins research team. Ricahrd, meet Gizmo," pointing to the Fox "and Fist." pointing to the Echidna.

Richard smiled at them, but then he suddenly noticed a small rip on one of Fist's gloves. He pointed it out.

"Wha?" he asked? "oh right you can't..."

"Ix-nay the alk-tay!" whispered Breeze. Fist nodded in approval, showing his hand with a ripped portion.

"Real fighter I am, my grandpa being the guardian and all, I got this baby thrashing some ancient eggman robots. You can finish them off, if ya want. Show us some of your moves.

Richard nodded in approval, jumping into the air, and flying with his wings towards where Fist pointed toward.

"Was that really nessecery?" asked Gizmo, worriedly

"He'll be fine" said Breeze, flying off.

_**Level 1: Ice Cap Zone (Music: Be Cool, Be Wild and Be Groovy)**_

As Richard was flying through the air, he remembered what Fist had said _"...my grandpa being the guardian and all..."..._ the guardian... he was called Knuckles right? He still didn't know how he did it, being guardian and all, with his own children dying and of course his old age.

Richard soon whipped out a small booklet he made: the enclosed instruction book, if you will. After vigorously studying it, he soon touched down beside a slope. There he saw debris, where Fist came from maybe, and some relatively harmless eggpawns, rusted and weaponless.

Richard then wielded his duel blades made of chaos energy, he began to hack and slash at the robots bodies at a quick pace. Hacks to the left, slashes to the right, decapitations, dismemberment, kicks, dodges and blocks. The robots were old and forgotten so it wasn't like they were much of a challenge.

Richard soon caught eye of a large steamroller-type robot firing missiles willy nilly. He also saw fragile ice platforms above a deep chasm. Quickly switching his focus between his feet and his destination, he started to jump across the chasm using the ice platforms, which shattered soon after he jumped off of them. Jumping up and digging into a wall of ice with one of his blades, he then jumped off of the wall and onto the top of the monsterous machine, where more eggpawns absentmindedly shuffled around, before noticing Richard and proceeding to advance on him.

Richard soo noticed the robot firing a large missile toward him. He proceeded to jump on top of the missile, fishing out it's explosive ordanance from inside, allowing what remained to clunk hamrlessly off the robot and onto the snowly slope below. Richard then decided to auto trigger the explosive, jumping off of the robot just in time before it and it's eggpawn maintanence crew blew into many pieces.

_**Level 1 End. Time: 1:19. S-Rank**_

Richard, enjoying the mindless slaughter, started making his way back to where he had left Breeze and the others.

While flying back, he noticed a familier golden pole.

_"That's a star-post"_ he thought to himself _"capable of travelling to other dimensions"_

He admired it for a few more seconds but something happened all of a sudden. It flashed bright colours that blinded Richard, making him lose his concentration and fall to the ground, tumbling face first into the snow. He soon pulled himself out and shuffled toward the star post.

The snow around the post had melted from the intense heat it had emitted for that brief moment. Richard then turned his attention toward a patch of melted snow a few meters away. He jogged toward what had landed on the ground: a palm-sized pill-shaped metallic capsule with a seam in the direct center, where you probably could open it to reveal the contents.

Richard picked it up: it was warm to the touch and didn't seem to have any markings on it indicating who it belonged too. He then started flying toward his destination with the object in hand.


	8. Preparations

"... Yeah, he found it when it was thrown through a Star Post... because he illustrated it on paper, Kid's a decent artist... ok so where are you?... oh... sorry I didn't mean to... soon as possible?... yeah cool... alright... goodbye."

Echo hung up the phone.

"I told Samuel about it, wasn't too happy that we interrupted his vacation but he said he can meet us at Castle Acorn to look at it closer."

Richard was sitting on the couch, listening to what he said. He nodded in approval. Echo announced that he was going out for a run, and Richard got up as he blurred away.

He moved into the bedroom where he saw Breeze, Gizmo and Fist sat round in a circle, chatting like friends. Richard felt a little bit jealous actually. Fist was in the middle of talking.

"...so I took my grandpa's gloves, put them on, and then I beat the living..."

"Hey Richard. Come sit down" Breeze said enthusiastically.

Richard smiled as he took a place between Breeze and Fist on top of his own mattress (they had upgraded from sleeping bags.)

Suddenly, Gizmo piped up "Hey, do you know where your bathroom is?" he asked, his voice somewhat shaking.

Richard stood up again, offering to show him.

Gizmo shook his head "Thanks but no thanks, you can just tell me."

Richard's eyes opened wide, he soon scowled.

Gizmo suddenly caught on to this. "Oh wait, that's not what I meant, I'm sorry, I, it's just, I can't, I need..." He soon ran off, opening all of the doors, searching desperately for the restroom.

Breeze and Fist saw the scene play out in front of them. Richard sat back down, almost offended. Breeze reached out to him.

"Don't worry about him, he's forgetful like that."

"Not as long as I've known him" Fist chipped in.

_**In the Bathroom with Gizmo**_

Gizmo was hunched over the sink, his face soaked with water, as if he had only briefly washed himself. His precious was still in his back pocket, taunting him, begging him for a release, pleading to enter for satisfaction. Gizmo took a deep breath as the memories flashed back...

**Flash Back**

**Gizmo woke up, a dull pain throbbing throughout his entire body. He tried to move his limbs to no result. He opened his eyes to be greeted with a dull light emanating to his left. Gizmo slowly looked around. Despite the lack of good lighting, he could tell that he was in a hospital room, the lights in his room were completely off, with only the hallway lights helping his vision. Patiently sitting beside his bed however, was a fierce looking black hedgehog with red markings on his self.**

**"Oh... I see you're awake." he murmured that serious volume of murmur, low enough to maybe count as a whisper but just loud enough so Gizmo could hear.**

**"ngh, what happened?" Gizmo quietly asked, his eyes still rolling around wandering, still trying to sit up in his bed.**

**"You mean you don't remember?" asked the hedgehog as he sat forward, slightly hovering over him closely.**

**Gizmo suddenly saw a flash. "Wait..." ...and he remembered as more flashes burnt his eyes in his mind.**

_**Like his father Miles, Kil Omerta Prower saw great untapped potential in science, even becoming a key member on the G.U.N. research and development team. Kil wanted to see how powerful an explosion could become if the explosive was mixed with other elements.**_

_**Gizmo greatly looked up to his father, along with his mother Desty Prower, Gizmo was seeing one of the tests in action, kept safe in the observation deck as per regulation.**_

_**Inside the testing chamber, alongside Kil, were a violet armadillo and a black raven, all wearing white protective gear. In the centre of the chamber was a rod of radioactive material contained in protective glass.**_

_**"Alright, Arnold, get to work on preparing the element, and Qouth, seal the doors." Kil said through his communicator in an orderly manner. The Armadillo went over to a console whilst the raven signalled to the control chamber. They proceeded to seal the doors.**_

_**"Elemental Test number 6. compound: Beryllium Carbonate. Other compounds yielded little to no satisfactory result in creating a powerful explosion." Kil stated into a voice recorder he kept on himself.**_

_**Kil stood beside Arnold as he activated a button sequence, a small number of internal sprinklers activated and the container of radioactive material immediately was internally drizzled with liquid Beryllium Carbonate, a gleaming silver substance which came in drops the size of rain. It stuck to the container and dribbled down like after a porridge breakfast meets a naughty child.**_

_**Arnold was taking heat readings of the material from the console. After about a minute.**_

_**"Projected megatons have reached the sweet zone, sir."**_

_**"Wait, let's see if it's still safe." he held out his hand. But after a few more seconds, caution was raised: the readings grew higher. Soon, the radioactive material started steaming.**_

_**"The material is having a reaction!"**_

_**"Activate the fire systems!" Smoke poured lightly out of the container as Kil alerted his superiors to his request.**_

_**Quoth the Raven flipped all of the appropriate blue switches to no success. "Fire Systems have shorted out!" he yelled.**_

_**Small licks of flame soon started engulfing the container.**_

_**"Why, why must this happen today?" groaned Kil as he slammed the console.**_

_**Desty Nayshen Prower was worried, but little Gizmo was terrified. He ran up to the glass plane separating himself from his father.**_

_**"Dad!" he screamed.**_

_**Kil turned around suddenly, and his face turned to shock and horror. "Get away from the window!" he shouted.**_

_**Just as a blinding white flash engulfed the entire facility, with soaring hot temperatures and a deafening boom which forced Gizmo to the wall, knocking him out instantly.**_

**Gizmo remembered, but he had no wish to. He shed a few silent tears.**

**"... I remember". He finished. He sobbed lightly as the black hedgehog stood up.**

**"I'll go tell the nurses." he said as he left the dark room, leaving Gizmo.**

**The explosion was reported to outclass even Eggman's Ultimate Annihilator weapon.**

**The next few weeks were an absolute nightmare for Gizmo. The Black hedgehog revealed that he had been dispatched to help rescue survivors, finding only Gizmo alive and heavily bleeding among the wreckage.**

**Doctors explained that he had glass cut him in very vital areas, even one small fragment puncturing his neck vein, which if it weren't for the Black Hedgehog, who was named Shadow, he would have died much quicker.**

**But the bleeding also helped Gizmo in a way. Everyone who didn't die from the sheer force of the explosion most likely died due to intense radiation poisoning. Gizmo was briefly poisoned, but his incisions allowed the radiation a way to leak out of his body. Predictably, this meant Gizmo had lost an awful lot of blood. The stay in hospital, aside from physiotherapy after glass has cut his limbs, was also to get more blood into his system.**

Gizmo took them out of his pocket...

_Polpodex Painkillers_. Gizmo was hooked on them during his stay in hospital, glass slicing his body and even a few bits and pieces lodged in there. Even today, Gizmo still felt this irritating itch inside of his body. He calmed down after ingesting a pill. He soon smacked himself in frustration as he tried to make himself vomit to no success. He had been trying to get off of them for as long as he felt he didn't need them. The itching feeling he associated to withdrawal symptoms. He could get over a simple irritation right?

After taking a deep breath, Gizmo drenched his face in water and left the bathroom.

Then, Gizmo walked back into the bedroom, desperately eager to leave, but not without one of his friends.

"Fist, our ride's here." his voice sounded normal too. He did look wet as through he recently had a shower, but he was only gone for about a minute...

Fist and Gizmo then left, saying their goodbyes as the moon slowly uncovered itself from the clouds. Breeze snuggled into her bed. "Goodnight" she said as she drifted off to sleep.

Richard soon got himself comfortable, it would be a big day tomorrow. He too slowly entered slumberland.


	9. Acorn Forest Zone & Boss Fight 1

Echo, Richard and Breeze took the train to Station Square, and then hopped on a Travel Coach destined for New Mobotropolis. They were all asleep from the long journey, but Richard in particular was having another flash back to a very early life

_**Dream**_

_**Richard felt an electric shock course through his entire body. He couldn't comprehend what was happening. He flexed his fingers, and then heard a voice.**_

_**"By Chaos" Richard then heard a thump to his left side. "I did it" the voice sounded masculine. He then heard a small laughter.**_

_**"It's Alive!" shouted the voice.**_

_**Richard then opened his eyes. Slowly but surely, he saw that he was in a high tech room. He leaned slightly to the right to see something truly magnificent: a planet staring up at him. Mostly covered in blue and green with dashes of orange and white here and there.**_

_**"Here little one. Over here." Richard was intrigued by the voice. He turned his head in the opposite direction. He saw a figure that looked an awful lot like a human, but Richard snapped to another memory before he could distinguish any notable features other than the blonde hair.**_

**He now saw that he was inside the hallway of a building. A large hole had been blown into the side, destroying a part of the ceiling and wall. He could see, with great effort, a tiny black speck in the sky. He then felt himself being picked up, he looked around to see that same blonde haired person... it looked an awful lot like Samuel!**

**"Come on, let's get away from here." He said as he carried Richard away, Richard could just barely see the remains of a security camera on the floor some meters away.**

**As the flames raged on, the snow poured in and the distress call was sent, Richard was woken up**

Richard stirred awake.

"Hey kid, we're here" said Echo. Breeze got up and stretched her legs. Richard managed to walk off the bus along with Echo and Breeze.

They got out and admired the architecture, intending for a straight shot to the castle.

Travelling on a path that led them alongside a large vibrant forest, enhanced by the sunny day, they eventually arrived at Castle Acorn. Echo soon opened the door.

As Breeze started making her way in, she noticed that Richard was apprehensive or nervous.

"Richard, come in"

Breeze made her way into the castle as Richard took a deep breath and entered.

He walked through the decorated spacious hallways for a while before reaching the throne room.

Richard soon entered the throne room, there was Samuel, Echo, Breeze, and an elderly figure with them. Richard manoeuvred himself around the huddle to be surprised.

The elderly figure was King of the Acorn Kingdom: Sonic the Hedgehog.

Richard was surprised, being in front of the queen was an honour enough but... the King, the hero of Mobius, this truly was a day Richard would never forget... for all the wrong reasons.

Richard slowly knelt down in his presence.

"Please kid, none of that." he said softly

Richard's head popped up. He promptly stood up, embarrassed.

Echo saw this. "Relax kid. He's an alright guy."

"So, uh, what's his name?" asked Sonic

"Richard, dad" replied Echo.

Just then, Samuel walked into the throne room. He certainly had been on a vacation, he had the tan to prove it. He was in that same Hawaiian shirt and shorts he wore ages ago in Soleanna. He led everybody except Sonic into a small laboratory.

There, Echo handed Samuel that capsule. Placing it in a Plexiglas container,, with Breeze hiding behind Echo hiding behind Samuel hiding behind Richard, a pair of mechanical arms examined it, before twisting it open.

Inside the capsule however, was a square-shaped half-centimetre wide shape.

"A MiniDisc?" asked Echo

Echo was embarrassed to get scared over nothing, patting Samuel on the back as Samuel looked back, annoyed, before turning back to the object.

"Curiouser and curiouser" quoted Samuel. He opened the container, reached in grabbed the MiniDisc. Placing it inside the disc drive, it only showed static

Echo was beginning to get impatient, starting to do poses like one of those waiting animations in one of those video games that people play.

An image soon popped up on the screen.

The creature was a hedgehog; with purple fur and green spiney quills on his head, his eyes were the darkest shade of dark blue, he wore black jeans adorned with accessories such as chains and buckles under his elegant robes of crimson red. He sat at a lavish metallic throne, legs crossed, hands absentmindedly drumming on the gleaming armrests, grinning ominously.

"Greetings, inhabitants of the prime dimension..."

The figurehead continued "If you have received this message, then know this: I will never forget the death of my closest. I will take my revenge on your dimension, reign a new world order. I shall arrive at 3 PM. After all, where's the fun in taking over your world without some challenge?"

The figure smirked before the transmission cut off.

Everybody was left speechless. Breeze eventually found her words.

"3PM . When's that?" she asked.

Samuel looked at his watch. "It's in about half an hour. Plenty of time for you to escape with your family."

Breeze nodded and ran off with Echo. Richard tried to follow her, but was stopped by Samuel.

"You want to see your skills put into combat don't you?" Samuel asked?

Richard immediately felt his blood rush with this alluring excitement, he couldn't really describe it, but he was jittering around inside. He was pumped. He nodded.

"Then let's wait here for the party to arrive". Samuel sat down in the chair.

Suddenly, an tremor rocked the building accompanied by a powerful kaboom. Samuel checked his watch.

"Jeez, my watch is slow. You'd better hurry to see if the royals are alright."

Richard nodded as he gained speed, kicked himself off of the ground and started to quickly glide in the air. His wings managed to keep him level as he reached his destination.

Many thoughts were raging through his head. _"Who is this? What does he want exactly? Is Breeze OK? Or Echo? Or the king?"_

"I want you to tell me one simple thing, your highness..."

It was the same voice as that belonged to the royal-looking hedgehog from the video. Richard touched down back on the carpet, then he stealthily hid behind a door as the figure continued his conversation. Briefly peeking into the room, he saw the same hedgehog, holding Sonic up with a knife to his neck, Echo and Breeze held up their arms defensively

"...where is Shadow the Hedgehog?" he enunciated the name sharply.

"Why do you need to know?" snarled Sonic

"That is for me to know, and for you to just TELL ME!" The hedgehog then threw Sonic across the room, knocking over Echo.

"Dad!" spluttered Echo.

Sonic heaved himself off of the floor. "Check the news man, he serves with G.U.N now. Last seen near the Red Mountains."

The hedgehog grinned ominously. "Wise choice man." however, he secretly grasped the knife he held tightly

"Just one more question your highness..."

Sonic kept looking at him. Breeze and Echo did the same

"How would you react if I threw a dagger straight at your heart?"

"What?" Sonic asked

"Too Slow!" shouted the hedgehog, throwing the blade.

At a lightning fast speed, it punctured Sonic's body at his chest area. He fell to the ground, bleeding heavily. Echo ran to his side, Breeze was beyond surprised, Richard made a spear appear in his hands, preparing to strike.

"Consider that my official declaration of war, Juliette's forces have already launched an assault, you're loyal subjects are fighting for their lives and you won't be here to save them... Hero of Mobi..."

Before the hedgehog could finish his taunt, Richard leapt toward him, the thrown chaos spear only knocking him off his feet. He quickly recovered however. Richard walked up to the hedgehog slowly.

"You're not Shadow... not powerful enough."

Richard grasped the Blade tightly.

"Catch me if you can!" he shouted as he ran out of the castle and into the forest.

_**Level 2 Acorn Forest Zone (Music: Green Forest)**_

Richard soon also left the castle, witnessing a horde of highly advanced robots approaching the city. Now he was worried. Those weak mooks he fought in Ice Cap Zone wee just underpowered poorly maintained relics that time forgot, heck, even that robot who fired a huge missile had a faulty BIOS, because by firing the missile at itself, it broke the 3rd law of robotics: A robot must protect it's own existence as long as it doesn't kill a human being to do so, and the only exception is self-termination if ordered by a human. Note the word Human, Mobians don't apply in those three laws.

Here however, these were brand-spanking new, highly articulate, highly intelligent shield-wielding navy blue death machines on legs. They started rushing Richard immediately after spotting him, their menacing faces staring directly into the souls of those brave or foolish enough to get a good look at them..

Putting his fears aside, Richard worked on destroying their shields first, heavy attacks from a downward angle. But before he could put his strategy to work, one of them suddenly swiped at his legs, and it scored a hit. Then another robot did the same. And another. Eventually Richard jumped into the air and slammed a large two handed blade he conjured up down onto his foes. This didn't knock them out but it did be rid of their shields.

_"Arial Strikes" _Richard thought to himself as he uppercutted one giant robot, proceeding to kick it's corpse into a large sturdy tree to finish it off, with little to no marks or flames harming the tree. Richard proceeded to hack and slash at another robot, viciously gouging at it's insides, little shards flying left and right, until he thought that he did enough damage. Seeing another robot charge directly for a cottage, Richard hearing the screams of the family inside, he quickly charged up a Chaos Spear, growing steadily in power, until he threw it, knocking the robot's head off.

Richard suddenly saw a laser turret come from out of thin air. It looked like the city's self-defence mechanisms were kicking in. Richard thought that this would be a good time to chase after his adversary.

Putting away his blades, Richard took to the air, flying over the forest canopy to try and find the renegade, eventually seeing a faint purple trail of light just exit from the edge of the forest in front of him. Richard flew after it before just about catching up on the hedgehog, riding extreme gear quickly toward the mountainous region.

Richard managed to catch up to him with some effort. "C'mon, Step it up!" he shouted as he accelerated. Richard, in response, channelled chaos energy into his wings, giving him a massive speed boost. The chase continued until they reached Pumpkin Hill when something bizarre happened.

_**Level 2 End. Time: 3:09. A-Rank**_

"Hey Assholes!" shouted a voice, coming from behind. Richard, for a split second, turned his head to see a golden blur fly straight toward him and then right past him at a spectacular speed. It briefly threw Richard off balance before he managed to regain it and fly after it.

The hedgehog had suddenly jumped off of his extreme gear and onto the train below, which was manned by more of the advanced robots. The golden creature ripped the couplings of the locomotive, separating it from the rest of the train. "You're not getting away that easy!" it shouted.

Suddenly, a few chaos spears struck the blur, knocking it down to the ground, which was an orange surface with pumpkins dotted about here and there.

Richard touched down after it, managing to materialize a large two-handed sword of chaos energy. He steadily walked toward the being. Suddenly, it's colours flashed blue and gold in rapid succession. When it stopped flashing, Richard could not believe what he was seeing...

Echo was the Dark Demon.

Suddenly, Echo started flashing gold again, creating a blinding flash before standing up with a sadistic grin on it's face.

"I really thought you saw the signs kid." it snarled.

Richard remembered: _"Hey, woah, don't make me a Kentucky fried hedgehog!." Echo shouted as he examined the damage, a large black mark where the fur on his arm burnt. Richard could think it looked __**golden **__for a second._

Richard grasped the sword in his hands.

"Really? I taught you everything i know kid. You're nothing compared to me!" it shouted as it cracked it's knuckles in complete confidence.

_**Boss: Super Echo Phase 1. Music: What I'm Made Of...**_

As the music started, Echo immediately charged to Richard, who tried to be careful not to harm him in the process of defending himself. Echo's fist rebounded off of the blade. He immediately sprang into the air, Richard watching his every move. Eventually, Echo halted and then quickly fell to the ground, creating a shockwave that knocked Richard off of his feet.

"Want some more?" Echo taunted as Richard stood up slowly, wincing from the pain. Echo suddenly flew into the air once again flying around Richard and began to materialise a ball of energy in his hands. Richard also turned along with Echo in order to get a clear view of his next move.

Echo then released the energy into multiple small projectiles traceable by a light trail. Richard realised that they would be striking his position and immediately jumped upwards. Although one managed to scrape his right leg, he was otherwise unharmed. He hovered in the air slightly before bulleting through the air at a lightning fast speed directly at Echo. Although the blade managed to strike him, he was still able to stand.

"Pretty slick move, soldier boy. I taught that myself when I was like 16, but without those lousy blades."

Having another trick in mind, Richard charged up another spear, aiming it directly at Echo. At it's peak, Richard discharged the spear directly straight up into the air, soon disappearing from sight.

Echo just laughed. This was the move that was going to bring him down? He knew rail grinders with better accuracy. But Suddenly, the spear came back down at a magnificent speed, it's kinetic energy providing a very powerful blast when it hit the ground, creating a devastating shockwave that took Echo to the ground.

Echo gingerly stood up. "Any other fancy physics gimmicks? Standing on walls, maybe?"

_**A/N. Yes, i just made a Sonic 4: Episode 1 joke. U mad? I actually like the game but I digress, back to the story.**_

Richard had no time to process the obscure reference when Echo suddenly bore down on him hard. The punches and elbow strikes were blockable when he got used to their speed and power, including a set of flying fists of fury, but one move just had him surprised.

Echo jumped high into the air, he looked as though he was going to curl up into a ball but he wasn't quite doing it. As Richard walked around Echo, who was still turning to face him even though he wasn't looking, Echo suddenly unleashed. It was a devastating strike of heat vision emitted directly from his eyes. Part of Richard's fur caught fire before he managed to block the attack. It continued for another few seconds, tiring from the pressure of blocking the blast, until it abruptly stopped.

Echo just hovered in place, bobbing slowly up and down. Richard put out the fire on his chest and wielded his blades as he slowly walked up to the floating monster, constantly on his guard.

Then, without warning, Echo started falling, flashing colours, alternating between his natural blue and that glistening gold. Richard tightened his stance, waiting for Echo to fully de transform back to his normal self, still as blue as ever.

Suddenly, Echo stopped flashing... he remained his golden colour. HE grew incredibly furious.

"You won't get rid of me THAT QUICKLY!" he shouted, as he initiated what felt like a Chaos Blast, which sent Echo into some kind of overdrive mode.

_**Boss: Super Echo Phase 2. Music: Monster (by Skillet)**_

Echo then did something strange... start flying in the opposite direction to where Richard was facing. In an instant he disappeared over the horizon.

Richard was surprised. He tried to process what had just happened, he dissipated his blades and just stood there dumbfounded. _"What on Mobius?" _he thought.

Suddenly he heard something: a whooshing sound that sounded akin to a jet engine directly behind him. It was very faint but it was approaching cautiously fast. Richard turned around and was surprised again.

It was Echo, his fist directly in front of him and closing in quickly. Richard was shocked. It was as if Echo circumnavigated the entire planet to build up enough speed so that the force of Echo's impact would...

Richard dodged the speeding hedgehog as he decided to stop thinking about it and just survive. He performed a quick dodge to the side. The air rushing past him as Echo flew past knocked Richard down to his feet.

Echo zoomed past Richard, suddenly the air slowed down... Echo was backing up. Suddenly, another air plume boomed in the skyline, Echo had accelerated back to the speed of sound in an instant, and he was heading right for Richard again.

Seeing the fight dragging on to unforeseen lengths worried Richard, he wondered if Echo would ever de-transform. Seeing no other way to stop it, Richard entered a guard position, he held his hands up to his face.

Echo whizzed forward the air rushing past him to create a deafening whirr, his golden chaos energy aura melting seamlessly with the sky. At an incredibly high velocity, Echo struck Richard... directly on the golden rings on his wrists.

The rings shattered into tiny pieces, the energy they contained dissipated into the atmosphere. The impact pushed Richard to near the edge of the Pumpkin Hill, while it caused Echo to lose all of his momentum in a sheer instant, making him dizzy. He regained his senses and started hovering slowly toward Richard, still kneeling on the ground and looking at his hands worryingly. "What could happen if i ever took these off? I never did take them off to find out and Samuel never told me" thought Richard. What if there was some kind of bombastically powerful explosion or a gradual leaking of his very life essence?

Suddenly, as Echo floated nearer to Richard, his hands started glowing a bright gold colour, and as Echo grabbed Richard in a chokehold, Richard gripped Echo's right strangling hand attempting to break free.

The reaction was unpredictable: a bright flash disconnected Richard from Echo. As Richard got his sight back, he noticed a stream of energy flowing from Echo's body into his hands, he felt stronger and more powerful, as Echo meanwhile shakily stood up.

"What are you doing?" he asked with a weak creak in his voice. Richard honestly didn't know what was happening, Samuel didn't say anything, Tails didn't say anything, nobody said anything. And yet here was Richard draining Echo's chaos energy at a steady pace.

Then, as anti-climactic as you can possibly get, Echo de-transformed to his normal self, the chaos energy stopped flowing. Richard was wondering "Did i do that?" Stop the flow willingly?

_**Level Up! Weapon Damage and Health increase.**_

Richard simply looked down at the unconscious prince. Many questions were floating around in his head, and when he would bring Echo back home after a tiring day for everybody, all the necessary ones would be answered.


	10. The game is afoot

It had been an energetic, hectic, frantic and quite frankly tragic day in New Mobotropolis. The Army of Robo's had recently been driven away with heavy casualties, with a lot of civilians following procedure and evacuating, but there were still those who perished. Derpens the Goat whose comic book shop collapsed as mechs trampled over it, there was also Angus the Greyhound, who did put up a brave stand, but fighting spirit could never match a laser cannon.

And of course, King of Acorn, Sonic the Hedgehog.

He lived to the old age of 70, and was a few days shy of 71 when the attack happened. Despite his best efforts to fight, he eventually succumbed to blood loss, the blade stuck in him and ruptured his body further as he was moved to the infirmary.

Miles "Tails" Prower was seated in front of Richard, Fist and Gizmo, struggling to find the words to explain what the hell just happened. Breeze was somewhere to herself while Sally was also on her own, probably mourning.

"Well, uh... I guess Richard already described to you what happened. Well, it all sorta went back to before he rampaged in Soleanna. He was about 13 when it happened."

_**Echo is in captivity.**_

**Echo, here just a teenager who hasn't experienced much of the outside world, is sitting down in a corner, his head buried in his arms. He is being held prisoner by none other than Doctor Eggman. Echo had been captive for almost two days. Despite his fathers best efforts, he was still trapped residing in the dark dank cell on board the Egg Carrier, anchored gently in the sky above the Holoska ice sheet.**

**The cage door soon rolled open, in stepping a massive masculine modelled muscle-toned machine, standing on two large legs, keeping itself in a straight up pose. It's rather ridiculous floppy looking antenna on it's head was forgotten when you considered it's large over empowering size. It's face was also sporting many features that made people quiver in fear: streaks of dark colours, accentuated details around the eyes, and of the eyes themselves were a bright neon pink, the feminine colour contrasted horrifically with the almost gothic detail on the face, only making it look more out of place, surreal, and even threatening. Echo could see it's identification as it passed by the barred window. It read E.G.G 613.**

**As it approached Echo, 613 pushed a big blue button located on it's left arm. As he did so, Echo's cuffs detached themselves from their chains and magnetised to 613's left arm.**

**"Follow". It simply monotically moaned as it marched out of the cell. Echo has no choice but to follow. On the way they passed by one robot kept in containment, a robot who couldn't move when looked at. The metal plate above it's cage door read E.G.G. 173.**

**Eventually they reached the cockpit of the imposing Egg Carrier, seated in the grand leather chair was Dr. Eggman himself, balancing a Chaos Emerald on his right index finger while drumming his left fingers on his computer console. His gaze met the outfacing windows of the cockpit, tinted to prevent the bright sunlight reflected off of the ice sheet from coming into the cockpit. The only indication of his age was the slight greying of his lengthened moustache and the addition of a few wrinkles on his bald forehead. He still wore his usual attire.**

**"Well... I've done it." he simply said out loud to no-one in particular. The tone of his voice was a quiet sombre one, that strangely had a slight joyful mood to it. "I still haven't killed the horrid little hedgehog but this... this is an improvement to my previous schemes." Eggman started to get livelier, like he was relishing in the capture of the child of his mortal enemy, as if all of the failures and all of the effort and all of the strain, the hardship and every single force of nature that came between had combined to try and try and try to send Eggman over edge and into a dark deep dank puddle of insanity.**

**As the hours of the day floated by, Echo was subjected to many horrifying experiments, as a comparison, Sonic's werehog transformation and his death at the hands of Mephiles the Dark combined were like a happy go-lucky high school class time ruckus compared to being exposed to negative chaos energy almost constantly.**

**Echo was laid down on a table and strapped at the wrists and ankles with metal braces, stark naked, his fur covering his privates. The continuous exposure had rendered him weak and helpless, he was barely moving but still breathing, still writhing inside from the pain and suffering, still dreading the inevitable.**

**Eggman had been jotting all of this down to fuel his research into Chaos Energy. Emerging from a hole in his computer console was what could only be described as a universal bank logo: it's head was a strange amalgamation of a sphere and a cube, as was it's body. It's right arm was large with exaggerated muscles and a huge hand, while it's left arm was thin and lanky, the accompanying hand also very lightweight. The mouth it had was straight for the right side of it's face, but it took a sharp upward turn when it reached the left side. It's mode of transport were tracts on it's feet.**

**"Oq-bot, (pronounced Ock-Bot) What does the energy reader say about his current power intake?" Eggman said to his little weirdo. Some say it's one of Eggman's most out-there and wild creations and it's better for it. Others think he just combined Orbot and Cubot and called it a day, the lazy bastard.**

**OqBot briefly looked at the computer screen before he gestured to Eggman. "1" he counted with his fingers.**

**Eggman looked over to Echo, and pleased with what he knew, sent the order. "9" he also gestured with his slim fingers and thumbs.**

**Oqbot input the command into the console, slowly a deep humming emanated from a machine, purple electricity looking stuff danced across the exposed wires, feeding Echo with a constant stream of negative chaos energy.**

**As Echo struggled with his bonds, Eggman sat back in his large chair, grinning menacingly, twirling his moustache. This was a man you could tell had gone of the deep end many moons ago, a man you would not let your children's grandchildren's great-grandchildren ever go near, even if you had to escape the grave to do so. A man so despicable, so once full of life and so cunningly intellectual, that even his video-game counterpart would be nervous.**

**Eventually, Echo unleashed a loud, shrieking piercing scream directly from the bottom of his body. Eggman simply sat in his chair, his grin extending even further. The more pain he was causing to the boy, the more pain he was causing to Sonic the Hedgehog, searching every corner of Mobius for him at this very moment in time.**

**But something unexpected happened...**

**Eggman heard a snapping sound. He saw that Echo had broken the bond on his right ankle and the affected area started glowing a shining gold colour. What soon followed was the breaking of all of the other bonds and Echo transforming a golden colour. Eggman was truly surprised**

**"Why, a super transformation. Most unexpected." he said while propping his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.**

**"Expect this, EggHead!" shouted the now-super Echo as he wildly thrashed around the cockpit of the Egg Carrier, destroying machinery and computers and circuitry left and right. OqBot simply cowered in his cubby-hole, shaking frightfully.**

**Finally, after enough damage had been dealt, the Egg Carrier crashed into the ice sheet, cracking the ice and the hull from the forceful impact.**

**Eggman was hiding behind his chair, keeping his eyes off of the blinding glow emanating from Echo, now facing him with the chair blocking his vision.**

**"What are you waiting for? Kill me and be over with it!" screamed Eggman. His mind flashed back to previous insanity endeavours, how he had deduced to not underestimate Sonic, as he was an element of pure unpredictable chaos. **

**Comic rant aside, Echo simply said "It's crueller to leave you alive in the freezing cold wastes." he simply said as he flew off southbound.**

**Eggman propped himself back into his chair, OqBot shivering out of his hiding place. Eggman just shrugged. "OqBot, get the nanites working on repairs. Good thing I stored an extra fuel tank, don't want another Death Egg situation."**

Miles "Tails" Prower sat back in his chair as he finished his own recollections.

"Sonic was just as surprised as any of us were. We bought Echo back to Mobotropolis, amid all of the political guff involving Soleanna and the Federation, extradition rights and whatever, and we eventually got the full story out of him."

Fist started talking. "So when the king was suffering..."

Gizmo finished "Echo's negative emotions took over? I think I understand now."

Tails turned to face Richard, who stared at him directly in the eyes, quizzing him intently.

"Well, if you want to catch the bastard, he did ask for Shadow's location, he was passing through Red Mountain when he last called, which was about a day before the whole... ya know."

Richard nodded quickly.

"And Samuel?" quizzed Fist, predicting that Richard would have that question. Who acted surprised, looking for answers.

"... he disappeared in the attack. Some of the town was devastated in the attack but we didn't find a body in the wreck."

Suddenly, promptly, Gizmo stood up and left.

Fist was annoyed. "What, need the bathroom again? Jerk." he said as he stood up to go after him, muttering to himself as he went. Richard also stood up and headed to another destination.

After gathering his things and pinching some food from the royal pantries, carefully equipping a rucksack so his wings weren't hindered, Richard decided that he was ready to set out to Red Mountain Zone to intercept the mysterious purple hedgehog.

As he walked down the halls of the castle, paintings knocked off the walls and small dusty patches of plaster shaken from the ceiling and landing on the extravagant carpet, he passed by the infirmary. Tails had previously warned him to not enter, so Richard just stood in the doorway, peeking in.

He saw Breeze sitting on a chair in the fetal position beside Echo, sleeping peacefully after his energy had drained from entering his super form. Breeze was silently crying to herself, a box of tissues laying on the bedside table. This day had truly taken it's toll on her.

Richard took a final glance and headed off down the hallway again. He couldn't bear to see her like this.

"I'm coming with you." Richard heard a voice come in from the infirmary. Stopping dead in his tracks, curious, Breeze dried her eyes as she approached him and resumed talking.

"I want to get the bastard that killed him."

**Meanwhile, Outside in the Forest.**

Gizmo was pacing around the forest nervously. The night had just started to set in, a beautiful sunset almost overshadowed the tragedy this dame had opened. The husks of mighty warrior robots had since been left to rust, clean-up simply wasn't possible at this point.

Gizmo started rubbing his forearms, the itches were starting again, he needed his fix. The cold air of a new-born night only prickled at his skin harder. Only one problem: he just swallowed his last one a few hours ago. His supplier started getting suspicious and asked for a prescription for next time. "Easy" he thought "they're not that hard to forge and I can last long enough right?" Wrong. Gizmo ended up procrastinating with all of the chaos happening in the castle.

"ngh" Gizmo grunted, a second symptom of the withdrawal was beginning: steep rising temperature. Not as harsh as a fever, though it still was unbearable. The cold air of night made it tolerable but it was only short term.

"Hey!" he heard a shout. Gizmo turned his head to see Fist stomping toward him, looking annoyed.

"Dude, what happened? Samuel goes missing and suddenly you just leave the table...

That was very impolite, you didn't even ask to be excused." Fist moaned. Only then did he notice Gizmo shivering. Fist took notice.

"Hey dude, you ok? You cold or something?"

Gizmo barely managed any speech with his teeth chattering in the cold air of the night. " G-G-G-got any P-Painkillers?"

"What? You got like a cold or something?" responded Fist

"YES!" Gizmo demanded. "... I mean... Yes, headaches and stuff." he calmed down.

"Ok... I actually have an idea of what we can do to assist Richard." He put his arm around Gizmo gently as the walked back to the castle.


	11. Red Mountain Zone A Shocking Revelation

Richard, who had bought two bracelets of stone pebbles to wear, to act somewhat like a mental placebo since the gold rings on his wrists had been destroyed, and Breeze were flying through the skies of Mobius, recently crossing the border that separated the United Federation and the Acorn Kingdom. To the right you could clearly see Empire City and to the left, you could barely make out Station Square. After a few hours of flying non-stop, the reached the Red Mountain Zone. Sonic had visited this place long ago during the Perfect Chaos crisis.

Richard slowly touched down on the volcanic rock of the mountain, whereas Breeze took a higher route to gain a better vantage point.

Watching her fly off, Richard followed with his wings, eventually reaching a highest peak. As he got there, he started to approach Breeze, stomping around on the summit and looking downwards to the surface.

"Ugh, this is getting us nowhere. Let's go down and get a better view." she said as she jumped down from the mountaintop and into a cave system. Annoyed, Richard followed.

_**Level 2: Red Mountain Zone. Music: Flame Core Volcano.**_

Richard found himself inside of what looked to be a dark narrow tunnel. He could hear pistons pumping and machinery whirring, his guess was that there were more robots inside, probably more leftovers from Dr. Eggman.

Richard noticed the dark outline of a wooden crate to his side. Peering inside and looking at the contents revealed emergency flares. Richard too a few out of the box, it wasn't like these belonged to anybody.

_**Item Aquired: Flare. Use these to light up dark areas.**_

Richard activated the Flare and he throw it high into the air, illuminating the tunnel in a bright red.

Richard was surprised when he saw the robots with his own eyes: they were brand new, marked with fresh paint, detailed limbs, it looked like they just came off the assembly line. He couldn't fathom how, but one of the robots suddenly zoomed up to him and socked him right in the jaw, knocking him down to the rocky ground.

Richard propped himself back up quickly and performed a rapid flurry of attacks with his blades which decimated the robot utterly, the tiny debris landing on the igneous rock. Wanting to hurry up, Richard took a risk and started to take height with his wings. He flew above the ground though not so high that he would collide with the ceiling.

Preparing a lot of Chaos spears like slotting arrows into a quiver, Richard started to gain air speed. A spider looking robot immediately jumped up at him, Richard just blasted it aside, which could also be said for a stray Coconuts, an Unidus, Motobug and even a Bladed Spina. All had a few spears thrown at them, piercing their bodies, pure energy of chaos damaging their systems and causing other malfunctions that an overload of energy can do. The Motobug even managed to explode after one shot.

Richard, having a ton of fun, managed to veer into a stalactite he couldn't foresee, disrupting his flow and falling to the ground on his behind.

He landed on the floor with a thud and found himself in a large chamber. It was just sheer chaos inside. Lava spurts were flaring up and down and all around, stalactites of igneous rock were falling dangerously near his position into the lava below. He managed to jump off of his foothold and onto another before another stalactite fell and shattered the foothold he as using, sinking into the lava.

Noticing the unpredictable and chaotic nature of when lava would shoot up from it's pool, Richard decided to go around, where a hard crust had formed, platforms with more advanced mechs standing on top, as if they had been placed there tactfully. Richard also felt the heat getting to him, his strenuous flying over the recent days with the adrenaline burst of blowing up weak robots and his recent head injury had worn him out quite a bit. He felt like he needed to get out of here.

He carefully navigated the footholds. Occasionally one would dip into the magma while he was still on it, making Richard lose his balance. He managed to grab onto an adjacent platform with only a small chunk of his white coat burnt off.

Setting up on the platform, He looked up for a way out when suddenly an orange tinted Egg Fighter robot rocketed a sucker punch directly at Richard's face, knocking him dangerously close to the edge. His hair became singed somewhat as his head approached the lava.

The Egg-fighter stomped closer and closer to the defenceless hedgehog, Richard examined the robots chassis: four large searchlights embedded in the chest area. Richard tried to formulate a plan. As the robot cracked it's knuckles, purely for intimidation mind you, Richard spawned a small sliver of chaos energy in his right hand. He suddenly got onto his feet, jumped and threw it at the robot's left shoulder. It rendered the arm useless. Richard then got to work destroying it: whipping out a Chaos Blade and removing the legs directly from the body, doing the same for it's arms too. All that was left was a body that looked like the bottom half of an egg.

Richard thought he would have some fun while his life was in danger in this volcano. Balancing himself on the still-active Egg Fighter's chassis, he used a chaos blade to puncture it's energy reserves. What resulted what effectively a rocket board, with it shooting off into the volcano wall.

Richard however soon managed to balance it, tilting to the left and right often to make sure he didn't crash into anything.

Richard looked ahead in surprise. Realising he needed to a quick turn or else crash into the volcano wall and into the lava, which had started rising, Richard pulled off a radical stunt: he jumped off of the chassis just as it would collide with the wall, the component struck the wall, changing it's course by a right angle, and Richard managed to land on the rocketeering chest ... just as it ran out of reacting energy.

Richard landed at the entrance of a slanted tunnel going upwards as the Egg Fighter chassis landed in the lava and was incinerated. The lava still rising, Richard made his way up the tunnel.

It was an increased level of chaos and madness in here, smashing hammers impacting on the stone floor causing vibrations, flames jetting out of the walls burning innocent heat flies to a crisp, Richard encounteres a few big spiders as he was backed up into another shaft, the lava gaining some moderate speed.

Richard felt a lick of cool air on his arms. Looking up, he saw daylight, an exit out of the volcano, a side tunnel this was. Richard knew that he couldn't ascend very high with his wings before the lava would catch up, so Richard decided on a final daredevil hare-brained scheme.

He apparated a chaos spear, aiming it at the roof of the tunnel. When thrown, it dislodged a very large piece of rock, big enough to stand on. Just as the lava was catching up to Richard's position, he threw the rock onto the advancing stream as it quickly gained a lot of force. Richard jumped and got on top of the dangerous flow just as the last of the floor was covered in the lava's dangerous material.

It quickly ascended the shaft, Richard feeling a few more wisps of air on his face.

Then, the lava forced itself out of the side tunnel at a blistering speed, a deadly eruption, lava spread across the land as far as the eye could see.

Richard then started falling. He felt weightless, he was falling too fast to make an aerial recovery, but he didn't think to even look down, because he fell butt first onto the rocky platforms dotted around the outside of the volcano.

_**Level 3 End. Time: 4:45. B-Rank**_

...Only for the slab of rock he was riding on to fall and impact somebody.

"GAOWH!" it screamed. Richard got back onto his feet and turned round to inspect. The slab suddenly shattered into tiny pieces, revealing the evil purple hedgehog underneath

"Huh. You got guts kid. Too bad I gotta rip 'em outta ya" He taunted.

The hedgehog initiated a surprise attack, rather clumsy taking into account his recent head injury, but successful nonetheless, landing two hooks straight to Richard's face, with a powerful third punch spinning Richard around landing back on the floor.

"I see not even Juliette's rust bucket's could take you down. I gotta do everything!" he shouted as he viciously started kicking Richard, landing blows on his sides, his ribcage, even one slightly scraping his head.

Richard quickly rolled out of the way of his next blow, stood up and charged some blades, extending their length to almost that of a whip. Clutching them tightly, Richard starting walking forward slowly while also smashing the blades on the ground, like he were whipping a subordinate circus animal, only if the whip were intended to kill.

A few blows managed to strike the hedgehog on the shoulders, hurting his arms severely. "guess I gotta get in real close." he muttered to himself, before he performed an Antigravity slide under Richard's legs... proceeding to simultaneously kick him in his genitalia.

Richard's face squinted in horrible aching pain as his attack ceased and he toppled to the ground. The hedgehog cancelled his slide, double-backed and proceeded to kick Richard again, roughly and toughly

Richard, kick in the nuts aside, predicted the next blow and grabbed the hedgehog's lower-leg, exerting a lot of force into pulling him over and throwing him aside. This managed to topple the purple hedgehog onto the ground.

The hedgehog shakily stood up moaning and groaning, clutching his head. Until he noticed something.

"What?..." he softly exclaimed, looking upwards at the sky. Richard wanted to see so he turned to where he was looking. What Richard could see before impact was a large red bolt.

It landed on the ground and exploded, knocking both parties to the ground, the purple hedgehog to his behind while Richard landed on his face. The fight had drained him of energy to get back up. He could only listen to the following exchange of words.

"I'd recommend leaving immediately."

"Ok, I'm leaving. That runt has exhausted me anyway. But I'll return, You will regret what you did 19 years ago, Shadow the hedgehog!" (dashing)

"Nineteen years ago? ...Nineteen years ago" (footsteps)

"Hey Kid, you ok?" Richard felt himself getting lifted to his feet, getting a good look at his rescuer: a Black hedgehog rather like himself, only the stripes were black instead of red. In fact he seemed to be physically similar to him in many ways, all he was missing were the wings and a head of hair.

When Shadow gazed into Richards eyes, shock filled him.

"It can't be... the wings... the eyes..." His eyes scanned Richard vigorously, darting back and forth across the body.

"Richard! " shouted a voice. Richard identified it as Breeze, flying down from a distant hilltop, with such grace that she could show that flying could be a new dance. Cirque de Mobique maybe.

"...the name!" Shadow finished, his mouth still hanging open somewhat. Breeze landed beside Richard, who could now support his own weight. Breeze now had the job of explaining everything that happened as quickly as possible...

"Oh, Hello Mr. Shadow, you probably don't remember me, I'm Breeze Hedgehog, you know... "Faker's Kid" well, not really his kid, more like his grandkid but whatever. Oh and have you met Richard, He's..."

Though it seemed Shadow had an infinitely more interesting topic to talk about.

"...My Son"


End file.
